Meet High Pressure Pete

Imagine my surprise when I discovered this 1929 strip, hiding at the bottom of the Star-Journal comic section. “High Pressure Pete” makes Jerry look like a stark minimalist painting. It’s roughly the same strip, but the volume, bass and treble have all been turned to eleven. Instead of the simple Mr. Givney, we’ve a squat fellow named Mr. Hookem; instead of a railway, the Corner Store; instead of a few surrealistic signs, there are dozens per frame; instead of evil little Jerry, we’ve High Pressure Pete.

Most of all: instead of a simple elegant end-over-end flip-take, we have flip-takes of unbelievable violence and disruptive power. This one is a fine example. Pete collars a crook who’s burgled the Corner Store; when the crook issues his version of the Violently Ordinary Rejoinder, it knocks the hats off three bystanders and propels the crook himself hard into the ground, leaving his hat, mask and his GUN hanging in the air. (They didn’t frisk them too well, it seems.)

But perhaps this was just a once-in-a-lifetime event; perhaps Pete was otherwise an ordinary strip? Read on.